
02 Apr Camper Appreciation
âCamper Appreciationâ
Written by Seth Paul Edited by Craig Groshek Thumbnail Art by David Romero Narrated by Steven SchniersCopyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on CreepypastaStories.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed, adapted to film, television or audio mediums, republished in a print or electronic book, reposted on any other website, blog, or online platform, or otherwise monetized without the express written consent of its author(s).
đ§ Available Audio Adaptations: Chilling Tales for Dark Nights â YouTube (feat. Steven Schniers)
â° ESTIMATED READING TIME â 16 minutes
âCome on, Jim, you know itâs going to suck.â
I didnât nod, though I wanted to. Mark was right, as usual. Most of camp had sucked, to be honest.
Tom, on the other hand, tried once more to be the voice of reason, even as he tugged up his shorts and kicked at a rock on the ground. âGuys, weâre going to get in trouble. Everyone else is going.â
Mark sighed and adjusted his glasses. âJust because everyoneâs doing it doesnât mean itâs a good idea. Didnât you see that old movie where everyone on board the airplane eats the fish and they all get sick?â
As we looked up at the big âCamper Appreciation Nightâ banner above the cafeteria door, I decided then and there we would ditch. Not like weâd miss much. A couple of songs, some pats on the back, the âHope-pache Awards,â which everyone was pretty sure were insensitive to somebody, somewhere.
In fact, the only good thing about camp at all was the reason we were ditching. âYeah, Mark, letâs do it.â
âMy man!â Mark slapped me on the back, a big wide, stupid grin on his face. âEven if it turns out to be nothing special, at least we had an adventure. Thatâs what campâs all about, right?â
Camp Quiet Ridge had not been an adventure, to say the least. Oh, sure, me, Mark and Tom had always had fun at our old camp, Camp Bendix Point, but it had closed that year thanks to a lice infestation. Luckily (that âluckilyâ in gigantic, sarcastic, hipster air quotes), an old camp, refurbished and under new management, got a hold of the Bendix Point mailing list and suddenly every parent in the tri-county area was thanking their lucky stars that their rugrats had something to do that summer.
The director, Barry, seemed like a nice enough guy, but after the first day rained out the archery competition and it was discovered that most of the canoes had been ruined by a squirrel, things went downhill from there. The nature hikes were slow and nobody saw any cool animals, the crafts werenât anything to write home about, and the counselors were all bored. To top it all off, during the week somebody had smashed up the windows in the cafeteria. They were never caught, but plywood had to be put up. Thankfully the lights inside worked⌠most of the time.
Seeing how his whole effort was going down the drain, Barry decided to cancel that upcoming Thursdayâs wallet making session to invite the whole place down by the lake to hear him tell ghost stories. It seemed like a long shot, but by that point, pretty much everyone in the place felt so bad for him that we all obliged.
We didnât need to worry. He was good.  Really good. Some of his stuff really did make our skin crawl, and a few times I looked out over the lake to the woods on the far side, imagining ghosts and goblins lurking out in the woods, watching us.
The tale that got to me the most, though, was one he told about a family, which had camped out there many years ago, that had mysteriously disappeared. A young man, his wife and their two children were warned that there was a murderer that lived out in the woods, but they didnât listen. The killer lived in an old house, built by a logger at the turn of the century, and they set up camp far too close to his home. Then, one night, while they slept, he came upon their tent, and with a few fell swoops of an axe, he killed every last one of them. He then feasted on the remains and buried them up in his shack.
I recall Barry finished his cautionary tale with a totally unnecessary warning: âSo donât go out into the woods alone, because the killer might be out there. He could be anywhereâŚevenâŚHERE!â Then he jumped at a couple of campers, who screamed with delight.
The story sounded like total crap. Ever since the slasher movies of the 80s, every camp has some story about some murderer roaming the woods; at this point theyâre practically mascots. Heck, even Bendix Point had the legend of Olâ Charley, a hermit who chased bad little kids with a chainsaw in hand and a bag over his head.
The thing isâŚthere was a house. At least, thatâs what Mark said. He had wandered off on Tuesday while our bunkhouse was trying to put together a papier-mâchĂŠ totem pole in the activity center up in the hills, and he saw a small little house, barely bigger than a hut, hiding up a little ways in the woods. He didnât think much of it at the time; only when he heard the story did he put two and two together.
Now, none of us believed for a second that weâd find a bunch of dead bodies up in that house. But the three of us were the curious type; something like that was just too good a deal to pass up. It was away from camp, probably abandoned, and we figured weâd have a ton of fun digging through trash to see if we could find anything to take home. At that point, somebodyâs old junk was better than any of the crap we had made that whole week at camp. My leather wallet, for instance, looked more like a foot than anything I could keep money in.
Besides, we wouldnât be gone all night⌠weâd be back before anyone called on a search. And if they did, so what? Considering our phonebook sized permanent records at school, itâs not like we werenât used to getting into trouble. Tom was the best among us, but he still did whatever we told him to do.
âI still donât knowâŚâ
I rolled my eyes. âTom, if you donât come with us, Iâm putting a snake in your underwear before we go.â
âThereâs no snakes in these woods.â
âIâll buy one.â
âGeez, all right!â
See? Did whatever we said.
Mark led the way. We had just reached the edge of the camp center when we heard whistling, and saw Barry walking around outside the mess hall. We ducked low, and watched him as he went over to the main doors, looking around as if to make sure everyone was safely in, and pulled the latches on the doors so they could shut.
I did feel a little twinge of guilt. I really couldnât help but feel bad for the guy. He kind of reminded me of what Tom might have looked like when got olderâŚa little chunky, balding a bit under that cap of his, but always smiling and friendly, even if a little gullible and naive. Still, the lure of adventure won out, and Mark whispered for us to go. Barry wasnât paying attention anyway⌠he was fumbling in his pocket for keys or something.
We skirted up into the hills, back up to the activity center. It was slow-going, being uphill, and we had to hold up for Tom once or twice, as he wasnât exactly in the kind of shape required for most summer camps. Once weâd made it to the top, Mark pointed up into the pine trees.
âUp there. As soon as you break the treeline, you can see it. Probably take five minutes to get there.â
I smiled. âAwesome. Letâs go.â
We waited a moment. Mark shifted his weight. âYou go first.â
âYou brought us here. You go.â
âI told you we shouldnât have come.â
We both turned to Tom. âShut up, Tom!â
An owl hooted.  Great.  We hadnât seen anything other than a few squirrels and songbirds that year up to that point. Of course, the wildlife picked the worst possible time to show up, just as we started to get cold feet.
I decided we wouldnât get anywhere unless someone stepped up, and if that wasnât going to be Mark, it certainly wasnât going to be Tom, either. âAll right, fine. Iâll go first.â
Up until that point, we had relied on the moonlight to lead us, but once we stepped into the trees it got dark.  Really dark. Like âlocked in the closet by my older brother when I was 6â dark. I got out my little penlight from the pack of camping accessories my parents got me on my first day of camp and pointed it up the hill, shining it around looking for the house.
It took a little while to find it, but once my beam landed on it, there was no mistaking it. It looked like a place a logger would have built, with mostly wooden walls, but somebody who was clearly not a logger had added a crummy side room onto the place. At one time or another it appeared to have been painted white, and its windows were busted out; its door hung loosely upon its hinges. I remember thinking at the time that it was way more awesome than âCamper Appreciation Night.â
I climbed up, with Mark following closely behind, and Tom stumbling his way after the both of us, until we reached the door, and I pushed it open.
Inside, the place was a wreck. Busted, useless furniture filled nearly every corner. Old tin cans, rusted and forgotten, covered a large portion of the floor. The mess continued on through an open doorway to an old kitchen, with a busted gas stove and an on old latching refrigerator, the type mothers always say never to play with. Thereâd been no power to them, obviously, but it was still a wonderland of garbage to sift through. And thatâs when I saw something metallic gleaming, partially obscured by the dirt and leaves littering the kitchen floor. I brushed the remaining dirt away and found a handle.
âHoly crap. Guys, look.â
Tom came over first, and his eyes widened. âIs thatâŚâ
I nodded, and pulled it hard. A square of the floor rose up, revealing a small, dirty crawlspace, and pure darkness beyond.
Tom gasped. âYou think thereâsâŚâ
âOf course not. Thereâs no dead body under here.â But even I couldnât believe my own words. What if some psycho really had been living up in these woods and buried some bodies in here? It certainly looked possible.
âMark. Mark, come over here andâŚâ
I looked behind me and saw that Mark was still in the main room, bent over and thoroughly examining something. He was turning it over in his hands. I left the trap door open and went over to see what he was doing.
âWhat is that?â
When Mark looked up at me, his pale, shaken expression was enough to put me ill at ease. But then I saw the source of his concern for myself.
In his hands was a pair of binoculars â modern ones â only slightly scuffed and dirty, where hands had been touching them.
âWhere did you find those?â
Mark pointed below the broken window. I had overlooked that pile while investigating the kitchen, but it now had our full attention, and it was obvious in an instant that the things we were seeing shouldnât have been in that house. We saw cans that were not only in pristine condition, but sealed. Beside a pile of old, tattered blankets was a modern sleeping bag.
I looked out the window. Most of the outside was unobservable in the darkness, but there was a small spot where the moonlight made it possible to get a glimpse of our surroundings. Taking the binoculars from Mark, I looked out at that point. It wasnât much, but I could see the center of camp and the cafeteria from there. It was far off, but clear enough that, in the daytime, I would have been able to see a lot.
Then something moved in front of the light. I lowered the binoculars, and I saw a shape amidst the blackness, its outline visible thanks to a small light it was carrying, which was pointed to the ground. It looked a bit like a flashlight beam, though it was covered, presumably to keep others from seeing it. For several moments I stared trancelike at the wandering stranger, until the sudden sound of approaching footsteps startled me, breaking the silence.
âOh, crap!â I whispered, dropping the binoculars. I grabbed Mark. âSomeoneâs coming!â
Mark froze, his earlier resolve to ditch camp seemingly gone. I grabbed his arm and looked for a rear exit.
There wasnât one. There was no door out to the back. And all the windows faced the front. Apparently loggers were not known for following fire escape standards.
âGuys! Here!â
Tom waved to the trap door. I had my second thoughts, to be sure â the crawlspace wasnât exactly inviting â but I wasnât weighing many options. Whoever â or whatever â was coming towards us was definitely not a camp counselor, and my mind conjured up nothing but images of chainsaws, knives, and the thought of us all skinned and hanging from the rooftop flooded my mind. With those images flashing through my head, we really had no choice. I pulled Mark towards the trap door and dropped in. Tom came in after us and pulled it shut.
It was quiet upstairs for a few moments. It was dry and dusty, and I could feel cobwebs all over. I wasnât sure if there were spiders still living in them, but I still felt light prickles going up and down my skin.
The front door opened. We held our breath as footsteps trumped back and forth in the next room, followed by a short, sharp yell. There was a thunk sound, and a can went scurrying across the floor.
Oh, no, I thought. He mustâve noticed his stuff was touched. Through the darkness, Tom reached for me and grabbed me by the shoulder, squeezing tightly. Normally I would have elbowed him as hard as possible, but right then I didnât mind in the least.
The footsteps shuffled around a little, and we watched in horror as the beam of the covered light danced through the gaps in the floorboards, until at last the intruder stopped in the kitchen⌠directly over the spot where we were hiding.
The light shone over the trap door. The same trap door we had recently unearthed.
As the light passed over the three of us, we tried to duck down as low as we could, moving as little as possible, and holding our breath. But in a moment, the light caught his face, and I saw who had been living in the house.
It was a man, older than my dad, maybe in his 50s, if I could even guess. He was dirty, with brown streaks smudging his face, but while I normally imagined homeless guys as having long beards, crazy unkempt hair and even crazier eyes, this man only had a few daysâ worth of stubble and short hair with a few flecks of gray. His eyes, though, were constantly moving, as if something was always darting around in front of him. They were also wide, practically bulging out of his head, like he was genuinely scared that something was in the room with him.
And then he shone the light right between the boards. The brightness of the beam forced me to blink and avert my gaze as my pupils dilated abruptly. And in that moment, his eyes stopped darting around.
Tom and Mark didnât move, didnât breathe, even. But none of that helped when I saw the smile slowly start to cross the manâs face.
I waited for him to fling open the trap door and yank us all out and tie us up, ready to put us on a spit. But instead, he went over and grabbed the stove, and with a horrible squealing noise he positioned it over the top of the trap door. Once the dragging stopped, the man trudged into the other room, leaving us alone in the dark. Tom began whimpering. Meanwhile, I put my eye as close to the floorboards as I could, and I stared in silence.
Courtesy of what little light the old manâs dim flashlight offered, I watched him rummage through his pile of things. A moment later he found what he was searching for: a long object with one end larger and fatter than the other. When he hoisted his light again, I saw it was an axe.
My blood stopped circulating. A darkness greater than that of the crawlspace seemed to envelop me, and the world appeared to swirl.
I awoke a short time later, to the sight of Tom before me, slapping me repeatedly.
âJim! Wake up! You fainted!â
I sat up. âWhat? What happened?â
I heard something click, and my penlight came on. Tom swung it under his face.
âHe left. I donât know where he went, but heâs not here.â
I rubbed my face, and noticed my hands were shaking. We werenât dead⌠not yet, anyway. âWhereâs Mark?â
Tom shone the light on Mark, who was balled up and rocking back and forth. On the one hand, I didnât blame him for freaking out. But I did want to crawl over and slap him for getting us into this.
I pushed at the trap door, but the stove now blocking our way had to weigh more than the three of us combined; we werenât getting out that way.
âSo, what now?â
Tom shook his head. âI donât know. But thereâs got to be something. Here, take the light and look.â
The crawlspace was incredibly gross. No matter where I directed the beam of my light, I discovered old cobwebs, debris, and even the bones of squirrels and rats that had gotten stuck over the years, a sight that didnât exactly boost my confidence. There were no spaces around the edge we could crawl through; where there wasnât raw earth, there was stone foundation. If we wanted to dig our way out, weâd have a very hard time doing it.
I turned my attention to the floor above us. In certain places, the dirt was so thick that it completely blocked our view of the house above. Regardless, I tested each and every one of the boards I could reach.
It was near the old refrigerator, near the rear of the space, where I found our first and only possible means of escape. Perhaps the ceiling had a leak at one time, but for whatever reason the wood there was really soft, and when I scraped it with my fingernail, bits of it flaked off.
âGet over here!â I called out.
Tom came right away, but Mark had to be coaxed. I told everyone we needed to get on our backs and kick as hard as we could. Tom and Mark agreed to give it a try, as we had no other options. The first collective kick merely shook the floor, but the second strike elicited a loud crunching noise as part of the floor splintered. I would have jumped for joy if Iâd been able to. A third followed, producing more cracks, and then a fourth, fifth, and a sixthâŚ
Ten kicks later, the floorboards were in their death throes, and with a final push outwards and upwards, they finally gave way. I wasted no time. I clambered up through the hole, wholly unconcerned about splinters and scrapes. I didnât care. We were free, and cuts were the least of our worries.
I helped Tom and Mark out, and we bolted out the front door with abandon. We took off down the hill, yelling and screaming our heads off, hoping someone from camp would hear us.
As we entered the campgrounds and ran past the nurseâs station, our collective instincts kicked in and we came to a halt, and stood silently.  Something was wrong. Looking around, we noticed that the camp was only barely lit. No one had come to help us, or even stepped out of a building to see what all the noise was about.
The camp was deserted.
The only place that was still lit was the cafeteria. We ran up to it and tried the front door. It didnât budge, but something on it rattled.  In my haste to try to get in, I had failed to notice the large metal chain, visible in the moonlight, that had been padlocked into place around the handles.
We went door to door, and found the exact same thing over and over again: chains and padlocks. Only the final door was accessible. It had obviously been secured like the others at some point, but someone must have really wanted to get in. What remained of its chains was in pieces on the ground. I hesitated before I opened the door.
We found ourselves in a back hall that led to several different doors. The closest opened into the kitchen⌠again, empty, and again, not what we shouldâve seen on Camper Appreciation Night. The lights were on, though, and it felt safer than the back hallway. The only other exit from the kitchen was through the double doors that led into the cafeteria itself. We listened intensely for a moment, but heard nothing to suggest we had company.
I pushed against the doors. Something was blocking them, but whatever the obstruction was, it began to give way as I applied more pressure. I mustered all the strength I had and shoved as hard as I could⌠and to this day I wish I had left that door shut.
The scene before me was one that will stay with me the rest of my life. The hall was soaked in blood, from top to bottom. Bodies lay at grotesque angles, covering the entire floor. We found all of the tables overturned and splintered. There were deep gashes in the plywood window frames, accompanied by streaks of blood and fragments of broken fingernails. Limbs dangled from the rafters.
It was an absolute slaughterhouse. The whole camp must have been in there, every last man, woman, child and bored teenage counselor.  All in pieces. Pieces with the flesh ripped right off their bones.
I scrambled backwards and shut the door. That was when we heard the scream. The unholy, awful scream. It came from the back hallway.
I ran towards it. Everything told me to run away, but a small part of me needed an explanation for the carnage Iâd just seen. Tom and Mark, wide-eyed and trembling, stood and stared as I sprinted in the direction of the sound. I thought I heard them calling out to me, demanding I come back. I didnât listen.
The sound had come from the head office. I yanked open the door, and there, pushing me back into the hallway, was the hobo.
He held me with his right hand, and he looked me right in the eyes. I looked away⌠and realized why he wasnât using his left hand. His whole left arm was gone, raggedly torn away.
His grip loosened, and he collapsed on the floor.
I then heard noises coming from the office, a series of wheezing, gurgling grunts. I was drawn forward; I couldnât resist even if I had wanted to. I felt as if the nightmare wouldnât end until I knew what was happening, and who was responsible.
Something round and pulsating poked up from behind the main desk. I went around it, and saw the shape was the stretched stomach of some⌠thing. I tried to get a good lock at its face, but couldnât see much due to fact that an axe had been buried deep within it. It appeared to be⌠melting. Puddling like a candle into carpeting, and leaving behind a rotten stench. Holes began to appear in its impossibly large stomach, and I could see fingers⌠shoesâŚ
It hadâŚeaten everyone.  The whole camp. Everyone but the three of us.
No. Not it.  Him.
Even without seeing its face, I recognized the worn baseball cap of Barry, still perched on its head.
The rest was a blur. Tom called the police. They came. They comforted us as best they could. What had remained of Barry was gone, leaving behind only the cannibalized remains of the people heâd failed to fully digest.
I led the police to the hut where the now dead man with the axe had come from. They ran prints on his remaining arm. They blamed him for all the deaths.
Everyoneâs parents were informed. Our own parents hugged us tight, wailing and weeping tears of joy that we had not been among the victims. The three of us â Tom, Mark and I â never went to camp again⌠though ironically, I ended up seeing a lot of counselors.
The police did find a match for the fingerprints. Forty years ago, a 12-year-old boy by the name of Jeremiah had been found in the woods, unable to speak. No one knew what happened to his family⌠from what the police could put together, they had all gone camping near Quiet Ridge, but their campsite was found empty. As the boy wouldnât speak to anyone, let alone testify, the authorities assumed the worst. However, no bodies or evidence of foul play was ever found.
Jeremiah spent years in halfway homes, never saying a word to anyone. He wasnât violent, or mean-spirited, but he had never operated at a level that suggested he could take care of himself, and ultimately he was confined to the Newbridge Retreat Facility. Heâd been there ever since, until, believe it or not, the same Wednesday that my friends and I were at Camp Quiet Ridge. That night, without warning, and to the dismay of his caretakers, he left. A crumpled flier for the camp, which been hastily torn from a bulletin board in the visitorsâ area, was later found in his room.
I saw the flier. It had a picture of Barryâs smiling face on it. I know because the same one had been sent to our house. When police showed us other pictures of Barry, they looked nothing like the Barry we knew. We had never known the real Barry at all, just whatever had pretended to be him all that time. My guess is that whatever was responsible for the massacre at camp had dealt with Barry just before Camp Quiet Ridge opened, and no one was the wiser. Suddenly the broken canoes, the broken and boarded-up windows, and the warning urging us to never leave the camp grounds made sense. The events of Camper Appreciation Night hadnât been done on a whim; theyâd been planned for some time.
I could only imagine what Jeremiah had gone through, keeping his knowledge of the beast a secret for forty years. Whatever his reasons for keeping quiet until the end, I now have my own secrets, and I intend to keep mine. The last remaining knowledge of what Barry truly was will be buried with me someday. But what exactly he was, I still donât know. I donât want to know. And thanks to Jeremiah, who sacrificed himself in his efforts to destroy it and save our lives, I hope I never will.
In the end, the man we had figured for a crazed madman trying to kill us was, in fact, an unlikely hero, keeping us safe in his own strange way. Â More ironically, Tom, Mark and I â who as kids couldnât keep out of trouble â are alive today because we disobeyed camp rules.
If thereâs a moral in this, I donât know what it is. It doesnât seem like we shouldâve survived what became known as the âMassacre at Quiet Ridge.â I still have nightmares. Markâs are the worst. Tom, thankfully, is doing okay. In fact, ever since then, we let him make most of the decisions now. Essentially, weâve all recovered, as much as one can, I suppose, and weâve moved on, graduated, gotten jobs, settled down and raised families. We should consider ourselves lucky.
But there is one lingering thought that still remains. I always think back to that day, to what Barry really was, and canât help but wonder if he was the only one of his kind. I hope and pray there were no others. Iâm not about to go on some adventure to find out. Iâm no hero. These days I try to stay as far away from the woods as possible. This means that all of you â and your children â are on your own.
If youâre going to camp, or youâre considering sending your kids to one, and you hear rumor of a âCamper Appreciation Night,â watch out. You may find that the camp directorâs idea of appreciation is far, far different than your own.
đ§ Available Audio Adaptations: Chilling Tales for Dark Nights â YouTube (feat. Steven Schniers)
đ More stories from author: Seth Paul
Publisher's Notes: N/A Author's Notes: N/AMore Stories from Author Seth Paul:
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Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on CreepypastaStories.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed, adapted to film, television or audio mediums, republished in a print or electronic book, reposted on any other website, blog, or online platform, or otherwise monetized without the express written consent of its author(s).